


Sunshine in the Corner of your Mouth

by thefrenchmistake



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Best Friends, Bisexual Robin Buckley, Bisexuality, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Not Canon Compliant, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:54:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24411628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefrenchmistake/pseuds/thefrenchmistake
Summary: Overall, Robin can say that her life has been, from the starting point, a shit show.But now, after having escaped psycho Russians and a goddamn pile of human flesh jelly, she can definitely declare without a doubt that Steve Harrington’s life is a far shittier show.
Relationships: Robin Buckley & Steve Harrington, Robin Buckley/Steve Harrington
Comments: 5
Kudos: 89





	Sunshine in the Corner of your Mouth

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, not gonna lie, they got me with Robin's character and this ship. I love that she's gay, but this idea had already been planted in my head and I'm waiting for season 4, so... here goes.  
> I would absolutely lose my shit if they make her discover her bisexuality on screen, although I doubt it'll happen, as she's pretty awesome as it is.  
> Anyway, hope you enjoy !

Overall, Robin can say that her life has been, from the starting point, a shit show.

But now, after having escaped psycho Russians and a goddamn pile of human flesh jelly, she can definitely declare without a doubt that Steve Harrington’s life is a far shittier show.

Against her better judgement and sense of self-preservation, she got attached to the dumbass. Torture session in a Russian secret underground is enough to bond people apparently.

She also feels strangely protective of Dustin and Erica (although that last one is a beast unleashed from the depths of hell), and gets why Steve is such a mom with the entire little weird Party. She gets acquainted, or should she say re-acquainted, with Nancy Wheeler, who immediately gains her respect if not her sympathy.

They’re so goddamn different, she doesn’t understand how Steve could be in love with Nancy and like her afterwards -her, Robin, too blunt and awkward and lacking any social skill whatsoever, with her nose stuffed into books and movies and charcoal smudged all over her hands- and still keep being friends with them both.

There is so much more to Steve Harrington than meets the eye.

But there is a drastic difference between both girls that really matters for some reason: while Nancy and Steve stay social with each other, even to the extent of Steve going to dinner at the Byers’ once or so every month, Robin is Steve’s best friend.

She is strangely proud of that.

Like she won at something.

Which is stupid, because when has she ever considered Steve Harrington a goddamn prize ? He is a pain in her ass, that’s for sure.

But yeah, last summer really fucked her up, and that’s just a glance at Steve and the merry gang’s everyday life.

So indeed, Steve Harrington’s life is a huge shit show, but it’s one that she wants to be a part of.

Eating on the sidewalk just in front of the video store has become a routine, considering they don’t have enough time to go eat something somewhere else.

They mainly talk shit, because the only time they can breathe easily and offer each other a distraction is then and there, stuffing their mouth with their sandwiches and rating movies or gushing about some girl.

“Look,” Steve begins, turning his body to face her, “I’m not saying she’s not cute, but she seems… Shy.”

“And Nancy didn’t ?” She snorts.

He sends her a glare, which she ignores, before haughtily responding:

“Nancy had a _je ne sais quoi_ about her.”

“Yeah, right.”

“She did.”

“Considering both your choice of hair and your choice of friends, I think it’s safe to say I do not trust your taste.”

“Hey ! My hair is on point.”

“Sure, honey.”

“Whatever. You’re changing the subject.”

“You are.”

“No.”

“You alway do when we broach the Nancy debacle.”

“I don’t see what more there is to talk about when it comes to Nancy,” Steve shrugs.

She might feel slightly guilty, but he always dodges questions about Nancy, and she might be a little too curious, sue her. She decides to take pity on him though.

“A fucking lot. But I’ll let it slide for now. Tell me how you came to be the Mom of the group.”

He frowns at her.

“I’m not anyone’s mom.”

Robin snorts, eyeing him disbelievingly.

“Right.”

“I’m not !”

“If you die, I die,” she mimics Dustin mockingly, getting a dark look for her trouble. 

“That’s… That’s Dustin.”

“Steve. Those dipshits love you. Own it.”

He eats the rest of his sandwich with a pensive look on his face, and she lets him mull over whatever it is he’s thinking about.

Eventually, when they only have a few minutes left before they have to go back inside, he asks:

“What are you gonna do, after ?”

She tilts her head to the side. 

“After what ?”

“After. I don’t think you want to work at a video store for the rest of your life. I know you love cinema, but I don’t know what you want to do.”

“Promise not to laugh ?”

“We worked at Scoops Ahoy for an entire summer, Robin. I promise it doesn’t get more laughable than that.”

“I wanna be a scriptwriter.”

“Like, writing shit for the movies ?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s pretty cool,” he remarks in all his Steve-ness.

“In theory. But in reality, it’s… Well it kinda sucks for women in that industry. What do _you_ want to do ?” She retaliates, nudging his foot with hers.

“I have no fucking clue. I just want to get out of this cursed shithole.”

“No monsters, no powers, no evil Russians ?”

“Something like that.”

“But who would you throw punches at then ?”

“I’m tired of fighting, honestly.”

The silence is a bit too heavy for such a beautiful day, where she can be in her favorite jeans with holes at the knees and talking to her favorite person in the world. Maybe they’ll part ways, in the after he’s talking about, but for now she'll enjoy this.

She doubts that they’ll lose contact. There is a bond that has formed there, that has weaved itself in between cleaning dirty scoops of ice-cream and confessing stuff they had never said aloud in a filthy bathroom stole. There is no way in hell she’s losing that.

“Hey,” she chimes in, drawing his attention to her.“It’s been two months since you were last beaten up. Proud of you.”

“Fuck off.”

There is something to be said about fear, and about the toll it takes on people even as the threat has disappeared.

Robin is not easily shaken, nor easily intimidated (she has thrown more punches than she cares to admit), but the fact is that the terror hasn’t left her bone since she went down in that elevator.

She didn’t come out the same, that’s for sure.

And they’re teenagers, they wanna live, they’re pretty good at ignoring traumas and all the things that are inherently _wrong_ in their lives. Yet she can’t go to sleep sometimes, staring blankly at the ceiling and noticing some shape or another that looks like the mall of nightmares or the blood on Steve’s face.

She’s anxiety ridden now, eats and always rushes everywhere, not unlike a squirrel -this coke-head freak high on heroine- and sleep doesn’t really come, it’s more dragged by her desperate fingers and her eye sockets burning until she almost cries.

It doesn’t get better.

She still feels the coldness of the chair on her thighs, can still feel on her tongue the metallic taste of Steve’s blood soaking the stuffy air.

Steve comes by sometimes, and she knows he’s harassed by nightmares as well because his face always falls in relief when she comes into view to open her window. The difference is that his house is always desperately empty. For him, waking up from a nightmare -memory- doesn’t change anything at all because everything is still huge, cold and empty.

So she lies to her parents and goes sleep with him some nights, and isn’t that fucking ironic ?

“It’s stupid,” she rants again from where she’s laid on his stupid big couch in front of his stupidly big TV with a stupidly oversized bowl of popcorn (they both have had enough of Ice-cream for life). “How dumb is it that I have to lie about where I go when what my parents are scared I’ll do is what I’ll do with a girl and not a guy ?”

“What ?”

“Nothing,” she mumbles again, letting her head fall back on the cushion.

“Oh, by the way, I read that book that you gave me, uh…”

“The Colour Purple ?”

“Yeah.”

“And ?”

“I really liked it, actually. I guess it made sense of a lot of things I hadn’t really thought about before, you know ?”

“Yeah, I know.”

He takes a sip of his soda loudly and she’s suddenly intrigued by his lips and the place where they touch the cold metal, the way his Adam’s apple bobs, the twitch in his fingers. He has nice hands, thin and elegant and a little rough although he has never done manual work in his entire life, not even gardening (“because dirt is _gross_ , Robin”).

It’s a surprise, to say the least, that she finds herself drawn to him right now, like, _physically_. Of course, she knows Steve is handsome and charming, knows that a lot of girls swooned over him in high-school, but she also knows she wasn’t one of these girls, still isn’t.

Heart beating like a wild horse in her ribcage, she says in what she hopes is a nonchalant voice:

“Hey Steve ?”

“Yeah ?” He mumbles through the munching of his popcorn.

What a gentleman.

“Can I kiss you ?”

He chokes.

Ok, maybe she could have waited like a few seconds to land this on him when he could actually breathe. That’s on her.

“Did you just O.D over there ?” She playfully asks, nudging him with her foot.

It’s become some sort of ritual for them, that question that doesn’t require an answer but just a reassurance that they’re ok.

“I... uh. I’m…I’m processing.”

“Take your time,” she teases, crooning an eyebrow. “Not stressing out at all over here.”

“Stop stressing out. It’s just... I thought you liked girls.”

“I do. I told you, I like you a lot.”

“That doesn’t...”

“I wanna try this,” she decides. “If it’s cool with you. Only if it’s cool with you.”

The answer takes a long time to come, and she can’t help her fingers from fidgeting as she focuses far too much on the movie.

“Ok.”

She whirls her head towards him.

“Ok ?”

He rolls his eyes, puts his popcorn aside.

“Let’s do this, Buckley.”

Moving closer to him, she narrows her eyes.

“Don’t expect it to be some grand revelation or some shit though.”

He rolls his eyes again.

“Wouldn’t dream of it. Come on, do the honor.”

“The honor ?” She snorts.

“I am a goddamn dish, Robin. Appreciate me.”

“I changed my mind.”

Lately, she has noticed the smug smirk he gives her when he knows she’s full of shit, and yep, that’s the one he gives her now.

“Never took you for a coward.”

“You were the one unable to speak two seconds ago.”

“Are you sure, though ?” He asks, all playfulness suddenly forgotten.

She’s the one to roll her eyes this time. They do that an unhealthy amount of times, it might cause sight problems later.

“Yes, dingus. Bring it on, the Harrington talent that made everyone gush.”

“It’s the hair.”

“Yeah no..”

Steve pecks her on the lips so fast she barely feels it, and she has to snort and throw him a disbelieving look.

“Seriously ? Are you in third grade or something ?”

“You’re the one who said it was just to try !”

“Kiss me like you mean it and maybe I’ll actually feel something this time.”

“Oh my God, you’re so infuriating.”

“And you’re still talking.”

Kissing him is... weird, to say the least. She’s kissed girls before (not a lot, but enough) and the taste of their strawberry chapsticks and the softness of both their lips and their skin under her fingers was intoxicating. Kissing Steve doesn’t feel like that at all, but it’s not what she expected either.

He’s gentle, far too much for it to be natural, so she knows he’s doing it for her sake (a surge of affection rushes through her -what an overprotective dumbass) and she kind of wants to know what it’s like when he abandons all restraint. If he would pull on her hair, if he would take charge, if he would kiss down her neck and collarbone and smirk when a moan would eventually escape her.

His hand is extremely hot through her jeans, even as it doesn’t move and is simply settled on her thigh.

Fucking hell, it feels much better than she thought it would.

She has never kissed a boy, simply because she was never attracted to one. Meanwhile, all girls kinda did it for her (they had such a nice way of walking and smiling and their hips and waists and breasts and necks and literally everything about girls).

But she has to admit, Steve Harrington kinda does it for her, too, and she’s optimal it’s because she knows him so well and cares about him so much (the way his mouth twitches when he’s amused but doesn’t wanna yield to her, the way his hand hovers over her skin, sometimes, when he wants to touch her but doesn’t think she wants that, the way he simply nudges her and jerks his head towards a cute girl).

So yeah, kissing him feels good-great, it’s... great- so she pushes her luck and presses harder into him, opening her mouth in an invitation.

Sensing his hesitation, she huffs against his mouth and pushes herself flush against him, a hand on his neck to beckon him closer still. She lets her tongue slip between his lips and there, he makes a sound. The hot wave rippling through her body is the only warning she gets before she kind of loses control, her leg lifting up to straddle his hips, and then they’re _kissing_ kissing. Like, full on make out. As if she were a stupid heterosexual teenage girl in a rom com movie.

She’s not, thank you very much.

She still enjoys their activity, though. A lot.

When she pulls away, Steve looks both wrecked and flabbergasted, and the laughter bubbles up in her throat before she has a chance to contain in. Luckily, he doesn’t take offense -why would he, it’s _Steve_ \- and simply chuckles with her, his fingers hot on her skin where her top has ridden up.

“That bad, uh ?”

“Nah,” she chuckles, and if she were mushier she would pass a hand through his hair or nose at his cheek, “it was pretty good.”

“Pretty good ? Nailed it.”

“You still suck.”

“I can suck,” he replies, wiggling his eyebrows and sending her into another fit of laughter.

“Oh my God, no wonder you always tank it with girls that come into the store.”

“Hey, a little respect Miss.”

“Sorry Mr the Hair Harrington. You were an incredible performer.”

He smirks at her but in the way that tells her he’s not smug, more relieved that they’re ok, that their friendship won’t be affected by this. The problem is that she’s confused right now, and she… She doesn’t know if she wants this to affect their friendship.

His hand slides up, to the base of her skull, and he digs his fingers there, working the tense muscles.

“That feels nice,” she sighs heavily, letting her head roll to the side.

“Mmmh,” he simply replies.

His hair feels stupidly soft. His body feels stupidly hot, and she wonders if she’s a fucking freak for asking her best friend to kiss her as some kind of weird experiment.

Maybe she fucked up.

“I can feel you stressing out. What’s going on ?”

“Nothing,” she mutters like the coward she is.

Steve and Robin tell each other a lot of things - everything, he might argue- but this, this is hers for now, and maybe she wants it to be hers before sharing it.

“Robin,” he sighs, because he knows her well and he knows that she is freaking out but doesn’t want to freak him out. So she closes her eyes, lets his fingers work their magic, and explains:

“I just need some time to... figure things out, you know ? Figure _me_ out.”

“Hey, relax. I’m not going anywhere either way.”

“Good,” she exhales heavily. “Cause I like you here, dingus.”

And because she always means what she says, she doesn’t move from her position, cause she’s pretty comfortable on his lap, wrapped in his warmth and scent. Oddly, she likes the shape of his trim body, the feel of the lines on his stomach and the hardness of his thighs under her. She likes it in, like, a _sexual_ way. She wouldn’t mind tasting more than his mouth and it’s so weird to think that, except it’s maybe not that weird because it’s Steve.

He gives her all the time she needs, not saying anything, simply running his hands on her neck and back in a soothing gesture.

God, she loves this stupid considerate asshole.

It must mean something, that she likes to kiss him and she’d like to do far more than that, but she still likes girls and their shining eyes and plump lips and long legs in summer dresses.

It must mean something, but she doesn’t know what.

Steve is the one to suggest it out loud, once she tells him she really enjoyed that and wouldn’t mind doing it again.

“So you like girls and boys, uh ?”

She takes a minute to mull it over, uncertain of the truth of that statement. Eventually, she decides on:

“I like girls and _you_.”

“Lucky me,” he whispers with a smile that’s too raw not to make her heart jump a bit, and then he kisses her again, deeper than before, like the assurance that she really enjoyed that makes him loosen up a little.

Needless to say, they miss the end of the movie, and she doesn’t even give a shit as long as Steve keeps her as close as she is now.

Robin is not cuddly, but she’ll allow it for now, because he’s a corny asshole and even as he lets her initiate every single kiss, he has tucked an arm around her and refuses to let her move away.

When the screen goes black, she turns her face towards him, and he’s already looking at her.

His smile is too smug so she gives him a head slap that does nothing to remove it, and snaps:

“What ?”

“I know you secret, Buckley.”

“Yeah, I kind of told you that in the bathroom when you confessed your undying love.”

“Not that one,” he rolls his eyes, “the other one.”

“And which one is that ?”

He leans down and she thinks he’s gonna kiss her again, but he doesn’t. His smirk widens and resembles more a true, happy smile, and he whispers playfully:

“You’re a softy.”

Robin almost takes offense at that, but it would be letting him win, so she elbows him in the ribs to get up. He chokes on his laugh as she gathers the popcorn and the drinks to put them away in the kitchen.

When she comes back, he’s standing and looking at her a little too softly for her taste.

(She likes it. Fucking hell, she likes it.)

“You sleeping here ?”

She lets an exasperated sigh escape her.

“Of course, dingus.”

And if he loses his breath when he comes into his room and she’s laying in his bed with her lip tucked between her teeth, well, they won’t talk about it. He’ll simply nod and hesitantly wrap an arm around her waist, and she’ll roll her eyes and press her back to his torso.

In the morning, they’ll talk some more, and Steve will begin to read books about her sexual orientation in the library, and he’ll bring those deemed interesting back to her so she can understand herself better and realize that she’s far from alone in her situation (she always rolls her eyes at him because she’s perfectly capable of researching that stuff herself, but he also plays gets a kiss in exchange, because he’s so considerate and accepting and goddamn, she really likes him).

For now, they don’t know if this unorthodox thing they’ve got going will work, but they’re fucking sure that no matter what happens next, they’ll have each other’s backs.

And that night, instead of cold steel and needles and blood, they dream of warmth and laughter and playful insults wrapped in raw affection.

“Keep your face to the sun and you will never see the shadows.”

— Helen Keller


End file.
